GoGet Carshare

Most places you can get to by public transport if you are living, working or visiting a major city, but there are those occasions when you just need a car, and usually just for a few hours - it can be very frustrating. Now let me introduce you to a concept that I experienced for the first time last weekend. A carshare vehicle. A concept that makes getting out and back into the major cities such as Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide so much easier.

GoGet membership card, that you also use as a swipe key car to open the car door once it's your turn to use it.

You can find more information about the details directly from their website, but in summary I offer the following information.

There are couple of elements of GoGet that are unique; 1. You need to be a member to participate.2. Cars have their own carpod (designated carpark which is its home), which can be located from where-ever you are via your phone (if it has GPS). The website will then let you know where the nearest available cars are.3. The car can be booked in advance or on spot if it is available and you nominate how long you need it for.4. Petrol is included in the price and not an extra.3. When you book a car you pay for hourly rate and then a kilometre rate on top.4. Your membership card works as a swipe card and once a car is booked, the swipe card can open the car door for you which allows you access to the key for driving.
5. At the end of the hire, the car must be returned back to its pod so that it is available for someone else to hire

The car we hired was "Gareth the Accent" who's pod is in a dedicated bay on the south side of Collins Street opposite Scots Church, see more detail about Gareth, visit his pod page
We drove the car from the Melbourne down to Mordialloc and back; the car had 40,000 on the clock but smelt new, was immaculately clean and drove very smoothly, we hired it for 3 hours after deciding at dinner to try out our new membership. It did take us a while to work out how to book the car and to open the door but it was easy, just very unfamiliar as all new things are.

This is probably is a sign of things to come, we can't all afford to own cars - not only for financial reasons but also because of lack of space for parking and on the road. At the moment in Melbourne at least most of the pods are inner city but I did find one out in Cranbourne "on Heather Grove near Berwick-Cranbourne Road."

As far as I am concerned it can't come soon enough, fingers crossed more will come to the suburbs soon!